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After the Great Khan’s death his heirs fought over his empire, wiping out entire armies. A grandson of the Khan, Temur is left for dead on the battlefield and miraculously survives to join the refugees fleeing the Steppes. But in order to avoid notice by an enemy that would kill him, he hides his identity.

Samarkar, former princess and now a widow, is close to completing her training to become a wizard. But despite great sacrifice, there’s no guarantee that she will actually be able to wield magic at all.

The necromancer al-Sepehr is aiding Temur’s cousin to re-conquer the Khaganate, and he will do anything to win, even raise the dead to fight the living.
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Once I’d finally managed to get past my irrational dislike of anything with hype attached to it, I gave Mark Lawrence‘s THE PRINCE OF THORNS (EBR Review) a read. You may remember from that review that I was completely and utterly blown away. It was just soooooo good. Then the sequel, THE KING OF THORNS (Amazon) showed up in my mail box.

I may, or may not have wept from the joy I felt. Then I may, or may not have babbled excitedly at my wife while thrusting the book in her face. She may or may not have wondered why she married me.
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Where are the great Science Fiction series? It seems like there are dozens of fantasy series out there. A new fantasy book doesn’t come out that isn’t part of a series. It’s actually getting the fantasy authors to finish their series that’s the problem now a days. But Science Fiction? Where are the series? You could make a case for a few. John Scalzi has written at least four books in his Old Man’s War universe–depending on how you count THE SAGAN DIARY (Amazon) and QUESTIONS FOR A SOLDIER (Amazon). Robert Charles Wilson just last year wrote the last book in his Spin “trilogy”. But neither of them was a series. A book would come out and it would be a self-contained story written in the same universe. Neither were set up from the beginning to be a small part of something larger.

Good thing we have The Expanse.
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When I want to treat myself to a good book, or when I desperately need to forget a terrible novel that makes me want to give up on literature entirely, I find that I turn to a very, very small selection of authors.

James Barclay is pretty close to the top of that list.

You see, I know that when I pick up a Barclay novel, I won’t be disappointed. Reading Barclay is like having your favorite steak, cooked to perfection. The first book in his Elves Trilogy, ONCE WALKED WITH GODS (Amazon), is the kind of book where I can forget I’m a critic. I just get to sit down, dig in, and enjoy the hell out of it.
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I a little ashamed to admit that I was late to the works of Robert McCammon (and honestly Horror in general). I mean, what kind of reader worth his weight in books hasn’t read McCammon? I was a member of that downtrodden and sad club until a few years ago when I found an excerpt on the Subterranean Press website of a novel titled MISTER SLAUGHTER (EBR Review). If that title doesn’t grab your attention, then you should probably go back to reading emasculated sparkly vampires.
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The Sword & Sorcery sub-genre is currently the most important facet of my reading life. This is the sub-genre that got me back into Fantasy after a five year hiatus where I read nothing but Science Fiction. With that in mind, I take the authors and novels of this genre very, very seriously. At first glance SCOURGE OF THE BETRAYER by Jeff Salyards (Amazon) failed to catch my eye. I didn’t find the cover immensely appealing (don’t give me that look, we all judge books by their cover) and the synopsis sounded like somewhat standard fantasy fare. At second glance, however, one might notice a quote by an esteemed fantasy author, comparing this novel to the works of Joe Abercrombie and Richard K. Morgan. Name dropping of that caliber is the surest way to stroke my curiosity.
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Dan Wells has had quite the run. The John Cleaver series — starting with I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (EBR Review) — was a fantastic blend of Horror and Fantasy with a YA tone (although it wasn’t really marketed as YA in the US). His novel PARTIALS (EBR Review) has been getting some really strong reviews. So I was pretty excited when I got my hands on an ARC of his latest work, THE HOLLOW CITY (Amazon).

I’d heard him describe the basics: a story told from the point of view of a paranoid schizophrenic, Michael Shipman. A man who literally can’t tell what’s fantasy and what’s reality. He’s seeing faceless men, and is convinced they’re trying to kill him. But no one else can see them, and he hasn’t been taking his medication in months. To make things worse, there’s been a serial killer at work in the area. Someone’s been killing people and essentially destroying their faces, and Michael is a prime suspect.
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At first glance THE MIRAGE by Matt Ruff (Amazon) struck me as irreverent and offensive. I was offered a chance to read the book for free through the Amazon Vine program and I passed it up. A couple weeks later I ended up coming across a review of THE MIRAGE that made me pause and think. From there the desire was planted and I ended up purchasing a copy, reasoning that even if it turned out to be a terrible novel at least I could write a scathing condemnation of it. As it turns out, not only is THE MIRAGE an excellent novel, but it is also everything a thriller should be.
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Several times now I’ve sat down with my wife and have attempted to explain a China Miéville book. I’ve tried to tell her how cool it is and how amazing the ideas are.

I tried to tell her about THE CITY AND THE CITY (EBR Review) and how it was about two cities that occupy the same space, and how you weren’t allowed to look at the other city. How you could be identified by the way you walked and talked as being from one city or the other. I once tried to tell her about a special kind of magic in KRAKEN (EBR Review), where you were able to fold large, three dimensional objects as if they were a piece of paper down into small pieces of origami. I even tried to tell her about a cool race of cactus like people that lived in the Bas-Lag novels: PERDIDO STREET STATION (Amazon), THE SCAR (Amazon), and IRON COUNCIL (Amazon).
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Once upon a time I read OLD MAN’S WAR by John Scalzi (Amazon) and it became my favorite book of all time. That said, REDSHIRTS (Amazon) has much more in common with Scalzi’s ANDROID’S DREAM (Amazon) than it does OLD MAN’S WAR. Sometimes a book is worth losing sleep over. Some books are basically begging to be read in one sitting. REDSHIRTS is one of these books.

Andrew Dahl, Ensign of the Universal Union, has a problem. He has been assigned to the capital ship Intrepid, a ship with an alarmingly high casualty rate for low ranking crew members. Recognizing a terrifying trend relating to away missions, Dahl and his friends seek to discover the origin of the trouble plaguing Intrepid. As death draws ever nearer, Dahl must race against fate to save himself and his friends from a most assuredly gruesome demise.
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